(MADISON) – Today, Governor Scott Walker signed in Milwaukee two bills that relax Wisconsin’s gun laws. One of the laws removes the state’s 48-hour cooling off period before an individual can purchase a hand gun. The other law allows off-duty or retired police officers to carry concealed weapons at public schools. Following the signing, Senator Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) released the following statement:

“Governor Scott Walker should add Sheriff David Clarke’s spurs and big hat to his campaign wardrobe, because they are both trying to turn Wisconsin into the Wild West. Wisconsin banned guns from schools and required a 48-hour cooling off period before buying a hand gun for good reason. It is incredibly insensitive for Walker to come to Milwaukee, the Wisconsin city with more gun violence than any other in the state, to sign bills relaxing gun laws. In the Governor’s efforts to ride off into the presidential sunset, he continues to leave a trail of bad policies.”

The 48 hour wait period was a good measure to vett legal gun purchases in the State of Wisconsin. It appears ridiculous to allow moonlighting / off duty and retired police officers authority to conceal carry firearms on school grounds.

The laws have passed now, but I do not recall a State legislators explaining why the laws was introduced in the first place. Someone please help me understand at this late stage of opposition to the laws.

Is there a projected increase, or crystal ball showing gun violence crime that will occur on public school campuses in the near future?

Is Gov Scott Walker and his Republican Legislators planning to cut the pipe line from schools to prisons, by starting prison indoctrination in public school hall ways and campuses?

Or is this just another piece of Scott Walker policies designed to appease the neo national right-wing old patriot ideology – once dormant – movement rise in our society the past seven years?

Apparently Lena has no knowledge of the reason for the 48 wait to purchase a handgun, it was there for time to complete a background check, this can now be completed in four hours or less. Seems like 40 states now allow this and none of them have turned into the Wild West. It would be nice if she fought for the attorneys to inforce the laws on the books now instead of going after law abiding citizens

I am not disputing the speed or ease of background checks Paul. I’m sure in 2015 it is fast and easy to do them. So why not universal backround checks then? It’s a simple question. And you change the subject all the time (see confederate flag press release where you bring up the Clinton’s who have nothing to do with it) so please quit being a hypocrite.

Philosophically, I’d say the reason would probably be that you’re only making it harder for law-abiding citizens to get guns, while doing nothing to stop the criminals from getting guns.

Practically, I’d question the effectiveness of the background check system to determine anything. Seung-Hui Cho and Jared Lee Loughner had no trouble passing their background checks. Our government can’t even reliably get security clearance checks correct, as the recent OPM hacks revealed that several hundred thousand were just rubber stamped and not actually investigated.

It’s fast an easy to require everyone to do the hokey-pokey before buying groceries. That doesn’t mean there’s a point to having them do it.

The speed of the check may be fast and easy to perform, but that presumes a certain amount of infrastructure. This is reasonable in a fixed location store, but you’re basically trying to shut down gun shows with this requirement. Each vendor would need greatly increased bandwidth, or you’d force them to funnel every person at the show through a central checkout that would make CostCo lines look short. As for online sales, it could work for the tiny portion of online sales that stay within the state. More likely you’re going to run into cross state issues that would require a federal solution.

Fast and easy is your term. Paul said 4 hours or less. I don’t frequent gun shows either, but I can’t imagine that a line where each transaction takes up to 4 hours goes that quickly. This legislation doesn’t mean that you don’t have to pass a background check at a regular store, just that you don’t have to wait an extra 44 hours for no discernible reason.

I agree that the waiting period is pointless. Someone gets mad and is going to buy a gun to shoot someone but has to wait 48 hours and therefore cools off and changes their mind? I can’t imagine that actually happens.

PMD, if someone gets mad enough to kill somebody, they are not going to drive to the store, fill out all the forms, buy a gun and come back and shoot that person. They are going to grab any nearby weapon, kitchen knife, baseball bat or what’s ever within reach and use it. So no, your scenario doesn’t actually happen.